On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Paul Koning <paul_koning at dell.com> wrote:
Ah... found him: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~hun/www.t3x.org/nmh/resume.html
paul
On Aug 18, 2010, at 7:02 PM, G ran hling wrote:
Hi,
Some years ago, I read some Internet writing about a SOL-11 (Small Operating Language), a Forth environment to boot and run a PDP-11.
It was written by a mr. Nils Holm in Germany.
It was by then available at:http://www.holm-und-jeschag.de/nils/comp.html
I cant find any copy of this around anywhere these days, and obviously I didn't download it myself either, guess there was just no space left on any HD in those days...
There was also a need for some assembler of Mr. Holms selection to compile this...
Does anyone have a copy archived of this little part of software for the -11?
Best regards,
G ran
Hello!
I believe I have a copy of a specific disk image, plus documentation
some place. It was available in one fashion or another from Bitsavers
for a while.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
Ah... found him: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~hun/www.t3x.org/nmh/resume.html
paul
On Aug 18, 2010, at 7:02 PM, G ran hling wrote:
Hi,
Some years ago, I read some Internet writing about a SOL-11 (Small Operating Language), a Forth environment to boot and run a PDP-11.
It was written by a mr. Nils Holm in Germany.
It was by then available at:http://www.holm-und-jeschag.de/nils/comp.html
I cant find any copy of this around anywhere these days, and obviously I didn't download it myself either, guess there was just no space left on any HD in those days...
There was also a need for some assembler of Mr. Holms selection to compile this...
Does anyone have a copy archived of this little part of software for the -11?
Best regards,
G ran
The closest thing I know of is a Forth implementation on RSTS (V10.1, unsupported). I created that one, starting from the original which I think was FIG-Forth (Forth Interest Group), either standalone or RT-11 based. But I may be confused; it may be that the FIG implementation was only a source of features. But I do have some memory of a version that loaded from floppy, with application source code simply stored sector by sector and referenced by sector number (no file system).
paul
On Aug 18, 2010, at 7:02 PM, G ran hling wrote:
Hi,
Some years ago, I read some Internet writing about a SOL-11 (Small Operating Language), a Forth environment to boot and run a PDP-11.
It was written by a mr. Nils Holm in Germany.
It was by then available at:http://www.holm-und-jeschag.de/nils/comp.html
I cant find any copy of this around anywhere these days, and obviously I didn't download it myself either, guess there was just no space left on any HD in those days...
There was also a need for some assembler of Mr. Holms selection to compile this...
Does anyone have a copy archived of this little part of software for the -11?
Best regards,
G ran
Hi,
Some years ago, I read some Internet writing about a SOL-11 (Small Operating Language), a Forth environment to boot and run a PDP-11.
It was written by a mr. Nils Holm in Germany.
It was by then available at:http://www.holm-und-jeschag.de/nils/comp.html
I cant find any copy of this around anywhere these days, and obviously I didn't download it myself either, guess there was just no space left on any HD in those days...
There was also a need for some assembler of Mr. Holms selection to compile this...
Does anyone have a copy archived of this little part of software for the -11?
Best regards,
G ran
From: Paul Koning <paul_koning at dell.com>
[MAIL-11]
That assumes you're not counting the earlier one that was used only
internally, written in TECO and distributed by some field office clown [...]
^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^
Wow! I am impressed/horrified.
OK I've had only minimal exposure to VHDL (I got a Q-bus DMA interface working
on a Spartan2 a few years ago but then got distracted by one customer emergency
or another and never came back, and have since forgotten everything) so I
should know better than to shoot my mouth off, but I've been thinking that
with the insane number of gates on modern FPGAs, it might not be all that
crazy just to do MSCP in hardware as an enormous hardcoded state machine?
Sure it'd be a *ton* of code but if it fits, who cares? This is how I ended
up with E11 -- just start work on a giant crazy project that couldn't be
useful today and see where the technology is by the time it's all finally
ready for testing.
John Wilson
D Bit
In software services, Real-Time Group (PKO2, Maynard) we used a "MAIL-11" app
that was written for RSTS/E (in BP2) by Steve Reilly (Software Services,RSTS/E,
MKO, Merrimack) and ported to RSX/IAS by Scott Blessley in our group. To the
average user it looked just like the mail on VMS and was pretty much
bug-for-bug compatible :-). It actually did quite a bit more than the VMS
version and turned out to me much easier to maintain as well. Advanced users
made heavy use of the extra "features"!
As a side note, Scott brought me into DEC right out of school, and Steve is my
neighbor (across the street). Small world...
-Steve
Paul Koning
On Aug 11, 2010, at 5:34 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Paul Koning wrote:
...
MAIL-11
MAIL-11 was written in Basic-Plus (or BP2) so it would work on =
non-FPP machines. That assumes you're not counting the earlier one that =
was used only internally, written in TECO and distributed by some field =
office clown who was fired for it...
=20
Yes. Inferred by the above.
*Sigh*
Sorry for the misinformation. My brain is playing tricks on me.
=20
I didn't know there was ever one written in TECO. Yikes... :-)
MAIL-11 started out as an internal tool written by Mark Goodrich. I'm =
pretty sure it was in TECO. It certainly was slow. But it worked; it =
gave us email connectivity to the rest of the engineering net, via =
DECnet.
At some point someone not connected to RSTS decided this should go out =
to the field, so he grabbed that code and just started distributing it, =
without even asking let along receiving permission. We put a stop to =
that quickly. But possibly as a result of that, a new mail program was =
created (again by Mark), written from scratch in Basic with good =
performance, which was suitable for outside use and indeed became a =
product.
paul
On Aug 11, 2010, at 3:14 AM, G ran hling wrote:
All of the interfaces "supported" are "oldish", i.e. they were implemented in TTL without any local "interface processor". Later interfaces were more or less all based on some embedded CPU to do the shuffling.
So, in taking this great work further, some suitable "soft processor hardware" needs to be implemented.
I realize there are several "commercial" alternatives, some supplied by chip vendors etc, some requiring costs, licensing etc... None of that is worthy to be a part of an open design, in my opinion...
Would it be more feasible to us in this community to use some design we already can master, and that we already have the tooling for? Should a PDP-11 be used for peripheral needs? If so, which model of the 11 should this "I/O-slave" be designed around?
Or is there already any "better" alternative (architecture so superior that it's worth learning/getting tools for) that I should put my eyes upon for this task?
opencores.org would be a good place to start. The "wishbone" open internal bus would be a logical part of this, as a way to tie the embedded interface processor to other things it would need (like an Ethernet core for a UNA emulation, or an IDE interface for a UDA). Then it becomes a matter of preferences along with the availability of supported programming tools.
Personally I like Forth, and not too long ago I started looking for a Forth processor. It turns out there were several. I think I dropped the idea before finishing the evaluation. At least one or two look like they are serious and should work; one is 16 bit and another 24 (!) bit. There is also one that was written in fake VHDL that doesn't actually work at all and never will...
Forth has the advantage of being a medium-high level language (not quite C but much higher than assembler), very compact and quite efficient. Its origin is real time control (astronomical telescopes) so the fit is good. I've used it in years past for pretty large projects; the "unsupported" interactive kernel dump analyzer "SDA" that's part of RSTS 10.1 is done that way.
paul
On Aug 11, 2010, at 5:34 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Paul Koning wrote:
...
MAIL-11
MAIL-11 was written in Basic-Plus (or BP2) so it would work on non-FPP machines. That assumes you're not counting the earlier one that was used only internally, written in TECO and distributed by some field office clown who was fired for it...
Yes. Inferred by the above.
*Sigh*
Sorry for the misinformation. My brain is playing tricks on me.
I didn't know there was ever one written in TECO. Yikes... :-)
MAIL-11 started out as an internal tool written by Mark Goodrich. I'm pretty sure it was in TECO. It certainly was slow. But it worked; it gave us email connectivity to the rest of the engineering net, via DECnet.
At some point someone not connected to RSTS decided this should go out to the field, so he grabbed that code and just started distributing it, without even asking let along receiving permission. We put a stop to that quickly. But possibly as a result of that, a new mail program was created (again by Mark), written from scratch in Basic with good performance, which was suitable for outside use and indeed became a product.
paul
Paul Koning wrote:
I think F4 don't need FPP, but might also be restricted to integer only if you don't have an FPP.
I think it simply worked fully even without FPP (or it might not ever use it even if one exists). F4 started in RT-11 which was aimed at small machines.
Hmm. I should probably check some documentation, but I think it can use
one if wanted.
That Basic+ can live without it don't surprise me, nor that it can use it if it do exist.
Having said that, the following do needs FPP, as far as I know:
Basic+2
No, definitely not. BP2 was used as the compiler for all RSTS utilities as pre-compiled by DEC (though B+ could be used by customers if desired).
Sigh. My memory once more plays tricks with me. BP2 can use FPP or not,
depending on which version of the library you install.
...
MAIL-11
MAIL-11 was written in Basic-Plus (or BP2) so it would work on non-FPP machines. That assumes you're not counting the earlier one that was used only internally, written in TECO and distributed by some field office clown who was fired for it...
Yes. Inferred by the above.
*Sigh*
Sorry for the misinformation. My brain is playing tricks on me.
I didn't know there was ever one written in TECO. Yikes... :-)
There was the one written in a mix of FORTRAN and BASIC, which was
distributed through DECUS. That should also be possible to use without
FPP then, I guess...
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
All of the interfaces "supported" are "oldish", i.e. they were implemented in TTL without any local "interface processor". Later interfaces were more or less all based on some embedded CPU to do the shuffling.
So, in taking this great work further, some suitable "soft processor hardware" needs to be implemented.
I realize there are several "commercial" alternatives, some supplied by chip vendors etc, some requiring costs, licensing etc... None of that is worthy to be a part of an open design, in my opinion...
Would it be more feasible to us in this community to use some design we already can master, and that we already have the tooling for? Should a PDP-11 be used for peripheral needs? If so, which model of the 11 should this "I/O-slave" be designed around?
Or is there already any "better" alternative (architecture so superior that it's worth learning/getting tools for) that I should put my eyes upon for this task?
A full 11/70 (for each interface) core feels just a little to much to myself. What about a 11/40 design??? Would 256 kB of (max) memory be to small to design an efficient Ethernet interface? Would the lack of separate I & D - space be to much of a problem. Or should a yet simpler design be enough. Not even implementing 18-bit MMU (thus max 64 kB of memory) should be enough to do several interfaces - just like DEC used 8080 on some boards (!?)
If such a design where used, should it be programmed upon RT-11? These "systems" should behave like embedded systems once finished, running from "PROM".
I have found a POP-11 online, that's seems to be open source, though not written in VHDL (that by the way also includes an IDE interface). Could this after all be a starting point?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on my ideas, even though I'll have to learn VHDL and get myself some hardware to get going - this is the starting-point I've been waiting for quite a while, dreaming of implementing like a 11/93-based system in FPGA. Beeing a spare-time dream, don't expect any of my dreams to come real "next week", though ;-)
/G ran
